Family law specialists 29 Bedford Row recently took the unusual step (for a barristers’ chambers) of outsourcing its whole IT support and disaster recovery solution. Will more chambers follow suit in the attempt to ditch the ‘quill and ink’ image that so many outside the profession believe still persists?
Some chambers have outsourced parts of their IT function recently, but 29 Bedford Row opted to completely outsource its IT function. Having renewed its three-year agreement with oncore IT in January 2007, it now has an all encompassing IT support agreement under a single, fixed annual fee. By using this fixed fee approach, the set has managed to simplify the apportioning of central charges to each of the chambers members and escaped the common scenario of having a plethora of IT suppliers providing various IT services, some under contract and some invoicing ad hoc on a monthly basis. The new system also includes a prepaid engineering voucher system, so where support is required out of normal working hours, 29 Bedford Row can apportion the charges to members of chambers according to the number of vouchers they have used.
